| This
is a 19at66 Bmobile
resin kit, from a company that I think is long out of business,
Scale Replicas of of California. Of course, this is
a replica of the George
Barris custom car that he built for the TV version of
Batman, and based on the Lincoln Futura.
I
bought the kit around 1987. At that time, it was the only
or one of the few companies making a kit of this famous
car. In fact, I had to wait a year before it arrived after
ordering.
But eventually it showed up at my door, and wow ! For years
I wanted a model kit of this car. The man who owned
the company was always nice and honest up front with me,
even with the delays. It's a shame if he is out of business.
The kit included the body, the interior tub, and vacuum-formed
glass/windshields. It also included a steering wheel, and
parachutes. The kit came with no chassis and without a lot
of other parts. I used a chassis off of a Monogram 1958
Thunderbird kit. Simply because it had the correct wheelbase,
without me having to do any cutting length wise. The wheels
and tires were out of the parts box.
The show cars at the time had Cragar wheels, which is what
I used. But of course, the first two original Barris metal
Batmobiles use a "Radir" type wheel, something
to that effect. I cut the small bats used on the center-caps
from thin clear acetate. The roll bar I completely made
from scratch. I would say that was the most difficult part.
The start of it is a thin piece of plastic.
I notched two small holes in the body and slipped the ends
of the roll car into those. I think I actually made small
tabs in the ends of the plastic and slipped them in. This
worked great, because it helped keep the roll bar perfectly
in place, and best of all, it never sagged or lost it's
shape.
From there I used putty to shape around it and get it to
where it needed to be. I also included interior items,
such as the bat-phone, the handle for the "bat-chutes',
the police lights, and other items. I also made the 3 pipes
on the rear deck. I added my own rear chutes, and a flame
made from painted cotton.
The Batman figure is a candle.The paint I used is over black
automotive primer, and is Testors Gloss Black. The red trim
is hand painted with Testors Italian Red.
Off
and on, it took me about a year to build.
Click
Here for my model of Green Hornet's Black Beauty.
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